the deafening waves
by HuaiYin
Summary: He can't hear, but he still believes in the blue of the sea. An AkuRoku oneshot with a deaf Roxas and a hopeful Axel.


_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own Kingdom Hearts or any of the characters. They are mine to play with though ^^

**Title**: the deafening waves

**Summary**: He can't hear, but he still believes in the blue of the sea.

_**A/N:**_ The grammar was made strange on purpose. Please understand it's intentional.

* * *

The first time Axel meets Roxas, they are both standing ankle deep in warm ocean water, staring out at a horizon of blue. Axel notices that Roxas's eyes are an impossible mix of sea, sky, and a deep seated bitterness he thought no one could drown.

"Hey," he whispers, barely a decibel above the sound of rushing waves, "come here often?"

He thinks the wind has snatched his voice when the boy doesn't even turn to look at him so he tries again.

"I asked," his voice is at normal speaking tone now, "Do you come here often?"

The blonde still appears not to hear him. Axel ruffles his red hair in frustration; he hates being ignored. He pushes down his irritation and speaks a little louder, "Hey can you hear me?!"

This time, it seems as though the shorter boy deliberately ignores him as he turns slightly to the side to push some of his blonde bangs out of his eyes. Axel's irritation flames into anger and he grabs the kid by the shoulders, whirling him around in a slash of waves and surprise, yelling "HEY I'M TALKING TO YOU!"

Blue eyes blink at him, and then the bitterness inside them seem to swell up. The kid yanks himself out of Axel's grip. Thin, brittle looking hands fly up and Axel watches as they slice through the air, forming fluid shapes and symbols he doesn't understand.

"Huh?" he asks when the hands finally fall back to rest at the blonde boy's side.

Teeth gnashed in frustration at Axel's stupidity, the boy points first to his ears and then makes a slashing motion in front of his pale throat. Axel's confusion only grows, and this time, it's the blonde that is pissed. He stabs his hands into the pockets of his sleeveless black sweatshirt and withdraw pen and a little notebook pad. He scribbles for a moment before hurtling the notebook at Axel's face. Axel barely manages to snag the rebound of paper off his skin and save it from the ocean at their feet. He smoothes out the crumpled paper to read what's written.

_I'm deaf, you fucking ass._

Axel sees that he was wrong before. It is possible to drown the bitterness in the blue eyes, possible to drown them in tears of humiliation.

oooOOOooo

Inexplicably, they become friends.

Perhaps it was because after Roxas storms away that day, leaving Axel shell-shocked at the beach, the latter manages to find him. The tall redhead had deduced that since the kid he met was deaf, he must go to the nearby school for the deaf and blind. By skiving off history and sulking around the entrance of the school, he had caught the blonde boy as he emerged, his arm around another blonde, a petite girl wearing sunglasses and holding a striped cane.

The girl had tilted her head to the side when she'd heard Axel stomping over and had given her companion a slight squeeze on his arm. He had turned and narrowed his sharp glass eyes when he saw Axel. He grabbed the girl's hand begins writing quick words into her palm, furrowing his eyebrows in concentration. Axel had to resist wincing every time a startled sound made its way out the boy's throat as he unconsciously spells out what he writes. He hates the awkward and unsettling sound of someone who can't hear making noises they don't understand.

After Roxas had finished and all but glared Axel into oblivion, the girl nodded sagely and said to him, "So you are the one 'fucktard' Roxas met by the beach the other day. He says you're as dense as rock."

"Look," Axel had jammed his hands into his pocket, uncomfortable with the whole situation. He almost, _almost_, wished he hadn't skipped history just to talk to a blind girl and a boy who couldn't hear, "I just wanted to come by and apologize, alright? I didn't know and I didn't mean to offend him."

He'd realized that he had been staring at the ground and he'd peeked up, trying to gauge the expressions on the other two's faces. The boy, of course, was sneering. To his shock, the girl was smiling. Vaguely and in the wrong direction, since her ear was turned to him, but smiling all the same.

"It was good of you to come and apologize," she'd said softly, "and I can hear that you're really sincere. But Roxas cannot, I'm afraid, so you will have to speak with him."

"But," Axel had shifted uneasily, "I don't know sign language."

"Learn it then," the girl had begun to allow Roxas to tug her away, "put your sincerity into your gestures and expressions the next time you come by…what is your name?"

"Axel," he'd mumbled.

"Axel. Well then learn how to put sincerity into your gestures the next time you come by, Axel," she'd smiled slightly again and let her companion drag her down the road, sweeping her cane back and forth in front of herself as she went.

And they'd left Axel standing there alone once again, completely dumbfounded.

But now, at least now they had each other's name at their tongues and fingertips.

oooOOOooo

It had taken Axel a week to learn how to say 'I'm sorry' in sign language. Not because he was dumb, but because he'd kept getting the letters mixed up or forgetting one. And about half way through the week, he'd realized that 'I'm sorry'actually had its own sign and there was no need for him to spell out the letters. He'd thrown the book he was trying to learn from against the wall in frustration.

But finally, after hours of practice in the mirror, he had gotten down most of the alphabet and 'I'm sorry'.

Unabashedly skipping history once more to visit the school for the deaf and blind, he had waited eagerly as people streamed past, looking for two blondes. He had never realized before just how many people were disabled like this and just how amazing and independent they all were. He'd watched in awe as a slate haired teen carefully tapped his way down two flights of stairs on his own, despite his mullet headed friend flailing behind him, trying to get the slate haired one to let him help.

What he had received though, after endless patience, was only one blonde. Roxas had emerged from the building alone, and he'd froze when he saw Axel.

Before Roxas could raise his own hands, Axel had started rubbing his fist over the center of his chest as fast as he could, which was the sign language '_I'm sorry'_. Then he'd nervously held out his hands, palms up, waiting for a response.

Axel would never in a million years be able to describe the relief that seeped through him as the boy's eyes softened and he mimed the signs for '_I forgive you'_.

"Oh god," Axel had slumped against the brick wall of the building, "that was fucking nerve wracking. Wanna grab some ice cream?" He'd stumbled through the letters for 'ice cream' and raises his shoulders in question for good measure.

And Roxas had smiled for the first time as he'd signed back '_yes'_ with a nod of his right fist.

oooOOOooo

It had taken awhile, days and weeks of trying to find ways to communicate. Axel's sign language skills are barley mediocre and Roxas still has difficulty reading lips. They go through notebooks and notebooks of conversation when they hang out at Axel's place or the beach and packets of dry erase markers at Roxas's house, the disgusting scent of the markers making them slightly giddy. They tell each other things they don't think they can share with anyone else.

Axel tells the deaf kid through written word and painfully inaccurate sign language how he wishes he could disappear into a line of endless blue by the ocean because school is stupid and pointless and so is life.

Roxas tells him through half muted syllables and a marker scribbled red against white how he's so tired of his parents hovering and trying to 'make it up to him' because of his so called disability.

Axel says through paper and pencil how he can't stand the screaming that goes on in his house at night.

Roxas's fingers waver when they convey how sad he is when his parents think that the reason he likes guys must have something to do with his disability.

Axel's wrists jerkily try to tell Roxas '_I think I'm starting to love you'_.

Roxas's smile mirrors the blue in his eyes and that is all the communication they need for now.

oooOOOooo

Axel sits on the sand, licking pensively at his sea salt ice cream as he watches Roxas. Roxas's eyes are unusually cloaked today, and his ice cream is melting all over his hand. He flinches when Axel touches his arm.

"What's wrong?" he asks, mouthing the words slowly, trying to make the lip movements more exaggerated for Roxas's sake.

Roxas crunches his forehead and turns away so Axel isn't allowed to read his expressions. But Roxas's fingers raise and fill the air with signs.

'_They're closing down the school. There isn't enough funding. My family says I have to move away, to be closer to the new school I'll be going to.'_

And Axel feels something shatter inside of him.

oooOOOooo

They don't see each other for a week.

Axel lies alone in bed, listening to the argument going on downstairs. It's his lullaby sometimes, the drunken voices of his parents rising in cadence before splashing over one another in waves of anger. He rises and stares at the battered calendar taped to his wall. Tomorrow's date is blacked out with ink and hate.

Tomorrow, Roxas leaves, taking all the words and feelings he will never hear with him. Never again will Axel be able to experience a golden silence on the beach with his deaf best friend, watching the tides and writing in notebooks. He will never get a chance to confirm the half formed thoughts taking solid hold inside his head.

Axel doesn't know if he can survive the leftover noise alone.

oooOOOooo

His phone vibrates at 3 AM and a text message flashes across the screen. He reads it, and unbidden, tears fall down his face.

_Meet me at the ocean. We won't need to hear anyone else's words ever again; we just need our hearts and the silence of the sea._

He puts down his phone and nods his right hand in a knocking motion. His bedroom door creaks open in answer and he slips away, nostrils filled with salty breeze and cinnamon fire.

* * *

I hope you enjoyed this.


End file.
